My Ideal Expansion

[AyinDygra]

As noted in my General Discussion post, this is the first in a series of 60+ posts that outline the contents of my ideal expansion and its many potential new zones, jobs, events and rewards. Hopefully it serves as inspiration to the Dev Team, if nothing else.

New Expansion(s)/Add-on Series:
Final Fantasy XI: Whims of the Simulacrum (Abyssea episode 4, paving the way for...)
Final Fantasy XI: Warriors of the Crystal (series of 4)

* Massive Spoilers from all storylines *
I'm only using the "hidden" tags to keep the posts organized; even the un-hidden stuff has spoilers.

Seriously, if you care about spoiling any plot points of the many storylines, you've been warned.

LINK TO INDEX (had to put it at the end of the list, didn't fit in this post) Please "Like" the individual portions of the idea that you like... I know most people won't like the entire proposal I have put forth.

~*~ The "Premise" ~*~
(otherwise known as "the story you'll skip through" and you may as well do that now and skip down to posts containing the events and rewards, if you don't care about the story behind it all.)

Background story:

Expedition to the Unknown
Long ago, before the events that lead to the loss of Al'Taieu (so over 10,000 years before present day), a group of Zilart found a Veridical Conflux allowing them to leave this dimension. What the explorers discovered beyond this conflux was the void we now know as the Threshold where the remnants of "discarded" realities were found.

The actual method of leaving this dimension isn't set in stone as a conflux, let's just say it was. It would be interesting to explore the reason behind the existence of Veridical Confuxes in this story, however I don't touch on that directly. I would not rule out the activities of Odin & Alexander (Ragnarok/Lightbringer) in this ancient time having an impact on the unrecorded history that could be used to tie in the events of ToAU.

This may have occurred at the same time that Eald'narche made a connection with the crystal, giving him the "Vision of Paradise" as the expeditionary group traveled through time, between dimensions, that sparked the interest in the rest of the Zilart to open a "gateway to paradise" somehow. The expeditionary force may or may not have not received the vision, cut off from the telepathic link shared by the Zilart when they left their home dimension. In any event, the conflux disappeared after a large group entered, never to be seen again. Some members of the expedition may have been left behind, fueling their desire to open this portal again under the misguided assumption that it was in fact a physical gateway to paradise, even though the Zilart plan to open this gateway was not really a plan to open a door, but the reunification of the mothercrystal to transform the whole universe back to a condition referred to as "paradise".

Unable to return through the conflux at first, they explored this realm. Here, they encountered an inter-dimensional traveler who taught them how to survive within Atomos' realm without being consumed by the void. The traveler had been using this "Cleft of Dimensions" for countless eons (and may have told them a tale about a world that had been split asunder when its crystals were split and then merged back together when the crystals were re-formed. This only matters if the expedition saw the same vision of the Zilart, linking the concepts of splitting & merging crystals) The exploratory group founded a new civilization within the void which began studying every alternate reality being consumed by Atomos, learning & recording that which they thought worthwhile to save from the oblivion of the void.

Watch and Learn
The immortal Zilart spent millennia learning and experiencing all there was to be seen in all the alternate realities. They accumulated a vast storehouse of knowledge that they could put to use and became masters of every style of combat they encountered, every known magic spell & every type of crafting. They used this knowledge to finally influence Atomos to open his maw to points of their choosing in both space & time, whenever they wanted. The group that managed to do this was able to exert great influence over the rest of their civilization which took on the name of that group: the Simulacrum, a name given to them by the traveler they first encountered. Being able to travel through time at their own discretion allowed them to study whatever they wished for as long as they wished, at least until Atomos got around to consuming the alternate timelines.

Passing Time
Ages passed after they had learned all they thought worth learning, thus they began to grow bored -- at this time, they turned to games for amusement. The Simulacrum took their games very seriously, especially when combat was involved. Having grown very old & complacent without anyone to truly challenge their power, the arrogance of these immortals moved them to impose arbitrary restrictions as they battled each other or on the participants in battles they watched. They began concocting powerful potions & items to influence battles as well. Their engineers also began creating artificial creatures (similar to the dolls, golems & arcana that inhabit most Zilart structures to this day,) to play new games with, test their abilities on and to challenge themselves in specific ways, known to us as the Caturae. (the Zilarts' penchant for bio-engineering monsters & weapons can be seen in Temenos and Apollyon, culminating in the creation of Ultima & Omega to battle the wyrms.)

Would You Like To Play A Game?
Of course, the biggest game of all is world domination. The only question then becomes, which world to dominate? The world most recently chosen for this "Caturariga" game was that of Abyssea. At least two players were involved. One sent game pieces into the world; including the Vorageans, hordes of powerfully enhanced beasts & the Caturae, while the other player chose heroes from the inhabitants of the world to defend it, giving them the Empyrean armor & weapons (found in other timelines), for that cause.

Clearly, the Caturae were winning (sections of the world were being destroyed in a strangely grid-like pattern, like a board game) until the adventurers from Vana'diel got involved. This may have been considered "cheating" by the opposing Caturariga player, so we may be seeing the ramifications of that scenario playing out in the invasion of the Voidwalkers - creatures that tracked the heroes down through the dimensions (we know the creators of Omega in FFXII enabled it to track Shinryu through dimensions to hunt it down & destroy it and it fits that those creators were the Zilart, since they also had a war with the Wyrms/Dragons -- imagine now if they were the same race as the Terrans from FF9... quasilumins sleeping while Garland found them a new home and bio-engineered new bodies for them -- but that's not applicable to this story at this time, just a thought)

Shinryu was set free upon Abyssea when the Abyssean versions of the Vana'diel adventurers were unable to defeat Promathia, likely due to the invasion of the Caturae (leading to the world being consumed by the emptiness.) Perhaps the Simulacrum thought it a fun goal to see if the heroes could stop the destruction of their reality by the Twilight God and thus facilitated this outcome. They may have adjusted their game when the adventurers from Vana'diel changed things, blocking access to Shinryu with the Caturae to force the encounters. Then, with the defeat of Shinryu, the Caturariga game was over for Abyssea; the same cannot be said of Vana'diel.

Summary: a group of immortal Zilart live in the Threshold dimension (where Atomos is) and they're bored and like playing games with worlds as the playing field and Caturae and people as the pieces.

[AyinDygra]

The Add-on Scenario events pick up at this point:

Triangle Island
A roughly triangular island exists on the northern rim of the treacherous Sea of Shu'Meyo, its coastline a jagged, crystallized wall of imposing rock. Swarming with giant rock-burrowing earth moving worms called Zone Eaters and invisible sleeping behemoths known as Intangirs; this dangerous no-man's-land has kept most explorers away, until now. The relentless digging of the moblin maze mongers breached the caverns beneath triangle island that were excavated by a massive, glowing, snake-like entity called the "Midgardsormr" whose gaping maw is now the gateway to the home of the forgotten civilization known as the Simulacrum. (it swallowed the veridical conflux - alternatively, it's a massive Cavernous Maw of Atomos that is a direct gateway to the Threshold, or this particular Cavernous Maw is named Midgardsormr.)

New Games
The Simulacrum found the moblins to be of little concern until they saw them use Maze Runes to: modify their tunnels, change the monsters within and to increase the powers of those who entered. Being especially fond of games, the use of runes on tabula intrigued them and they sought to learn the secret of the runes. Their most significant breakthroughs came when they met adventurers in possession of soul plates. Copying the moblins' use of runes, the Simulacrum devised ways to modify tabula with even more precision & power than the moblins by combining runes with soul plates & their forbidden simulacry.

Learning of how adventurers put the soul plates to use in the Pankration games, the Simulacrum was delighted. They were determined to hold their own games, but they were not satisfied to simply use soul reflectors created from weak monsters. They sent ambassadors to Aht Urhgan to "negotiate" having their scientists work to perfect their methods of creature creation with Simulacrum assistance. They also "petitioned" for the opening of the closed portion of the Colosseum to test their own combat strategies against these enhanced monsters.

The Most Dangerous Game
When Caturae were brought into the colosseum, the adventurers of Vana'diel knew who they were dealing with and they knew they had to take the fight to the Simulacrum to save their world from the same fate as Abyssea - without tipping their hand too early, for the Simulacrum was not yet aware that the adventurers of Vana'diel had been the same who saved Abyssea. (this point could go either way, with Voidwalkers being their first steps into Vana'diel in their "revenge" attack. It's just an interesting possible plot point. It could still go this way, but the "timing" would have to be retroactively changed to say the Voidwalkers only appeared after Abyssea, in the storyline that nobody reads.)

Fog of War
The threat of the Simulacrum's war games overshadows the encroaching of the emptiness for a time, but when this problem is dealt with, the only hope for Vana'diel is found by using the void to travel to soon-to-be-devoured realms. The light must be restored to the mothercrystals. It is time for the adventurers to become both the Light Warriors & Warriors of the Crystal and restore the lands being consumed by the darkness. (once the lands are restored, they must fix the problems their lands were dealing with before the coming of the emptiness. Yes, this last paragraph outlines the content of the four outlying continents. I'm leaving it up to SE to fill in the massive blanks, with a few possibilities thrown into the next sections.)

Summary: The destroyers of Abyssea were the Zilart in the Threshold who were playing a game of Caturariga with the Caturae on one side, and the "heroes" of Abyssea on the other. Vana'diel's heroes stopped the game on Abyssea, but now the Zilart have found Vana'diel, and they might just start playing their game here too, unless we do something about it.

After we finish off the Abyssea storyline with that confrontation, we turn our attention back to Vana'diel to deal with some unresolved issues, such as reclaiming Tavnazia from the beastmen and we need to restore the light of the mothercrystals to fight back the emptiness that threatens to engulf the entire world (in one nice expansion, or another series of add-on scenarios - one for each continent surrounding the middle lands)

[AyinDygra]

~*~ Story Features ~*~

Characters in the story linked to this "setting" could include:

* The Midgardsormr that swallows travelers and transports them to the rift.

* Haughty, immortal, pleasure-seeking Simulacrum officials.

* Disgusted citizens of the Simulacrum that want more for their people than entertainment; they can do something good with all of their knowledge & abilities. (At least one male with a parrot theme'd appearance/traits & a female with a fox's theme, perhaps on opposing sides?, based on the FFT male/female outfits)

* Corrupt Judgemasters who "Fix" games for some ulterior motives.

* Incorruptible Judgemasters who oversee the Simulacrum's battles and come into conflict with the corrupt.

* Goblins & Moblins scheming to make money. (maybe Qiqirns)

* Mindless or Noble Caturae that serve the Simulacrum diligently, asking no questions.

* Intelligent Caturae pieces who rebel against the Simulacrum.

* Vana'diel & Simulacrum Engineers play important roles in dealing with the Caturae.

* Chemists & Alchemists from Bastok, Al Zahbi & the Simulacrum create potions & items to influence the "games".

* Summoners who master the power of the Void, summoning the maws of "Atomos".

* Atomos could directly speak in this story, through the face on the "active" Cavernous Maws.

* It's possible the Cait Siths were in reality, automatons used by the rebelling citizens that wanted to use their knowledge & abilities for good, not an avatar created by Altana's tears. (The first time the Cait Sith voice is described it's a disembodied metallic voice) Update: Sadly, they recently announced Cait Sith as an actual avatar... oh well. Cait Sith may have been summoned by the rebel faction.

* The Phoenix reviving all those killed by the emptiness.

* Echidna, "the mother of all monsters" may dwell in the caves below the veldt of the west. (may not want to destroy her, but rather, create more creatures to contain the emptiness.)

* Uggalepih may be involved with Mithra in the lands of the south. (more male mithra, hopefully a variety weak cat/strong lion)

* The Far East has much lore regarding the Yagudo & Tenzen's people.

* The frozen north, homeland of the Elvaan before they moved to the middlelands, Vikings (many of whom became Gnoles), the Orcs & the Gigases.

* Several new varieties of summoned monsters are introduced, some drawn from the sentient races of Vana'diel. Mainly through how other cultures of Vana'diel interact with the world. (we know the Western continent of Ulbuka has Native American (north & south) themes and past FF games have used parts of at least one of those cultures in previous summoning stories - Totema and several summons have been named after their mythologies.) Summoned monsters generally become major parts of FFXI's stories, so I placed them on this list of potential characters. These other summons may be very angry with Carbuncle and the other terrestrial avatars for not stopping the Zilart earlier and not keeping the mothercrystals safe, but they're willing to help the adventurers fix the mess.

Plot Elements and Story-related activities:

* Themes
Whims of the Simulacrum: fight against corruption, consequences of pride, proper use of knowledge, good sportsmanship
Warriors of the Crystal: (different theme for each continent, based on what we know of them from items & history)
Far East - Value of human life (Unwarranted sacrifices demanded - there's another way)
Ulbuka - Care for nature, protect life, birthplace of unnatural monsters (actions of some people worse than monsters)
Rhazowa - Survival in bleak conditions, fortitude to fight against the emptiness & despair
Olzhirya - Rule of Law, Too much control, Over-protective, demanding cultural purity, Accept help, leaving = betrayal?

* Stop the Simulacrum from playing Caturariga.

* Learn about the light of the mothercrystal & the emptiness.

* Inter-dimensional travel & Time travel with Simulacrum Jikuu Sages (Time Mages).

* The Bastokan Blight may have been a time-traveling attempt at destroying Bastok so Vana'diel's engineers would not have a stronghold of progress under Cid's direction to defeat their Caturae. (See Simulacrum Arena - Historic Battles) Also, Bastok has an abandoned rail system and past FF games have the lore including "Doomtrain" that caused all sorts of bad status ailments on its targets... add all these up.
(Possibilities: Doomtrain may have been a specifically designed Chariot-type machine sent by the Simulacrum - combine the battle with Chocobo Derby event mechanics, battling the moving train before it can reach Bastok... or it may have been simply a train that Bastok sent its sick away aboard, which lead to a stigma against boarding trains connected to death and trains being abandoned for passenger use.)

* Learn more about the "light" from Abyssean scientists and learn of a way to fight the emptiness. (One thing that occurs to me, is that the emptiness is in almost every living creature. As more creatures are born, more of the emptiness would be contained by them. Perhaps the adventurers need to find a way to breed a really fast-reproducing creature to contain the emptiness... like rabbits...(half-joke, cuz you know they've got those deep black empty eyes) In addition, restoring the light that was drawn out of the crystals by the Zilart when trying to open the gate to paradise twice would also help fight back this emptiness.)

* In each add-on in the series, or all in one expansion: Travel to all/one of: the far south, west, north & east continents to battle the encroaching emptiness. (See "New Zones" section & "New Endgame Events")

* The western continent of Ulbuka may be home to the Moogle Forest & Kupofried's Moogle Civilization, rather than another "evil" beastman tribe. Also, the Dragoons on Adoulin Isle in the west may be wyvern riders, with fully grown wyverns, hinted at by the Campaign Dragoon Freelancer.

* Cross-over plot with Treasures of Aht Urhgan: Re-opening of the Hazhalm Testing Grounds (See "New Endgame Events - Monster Arena")

* Cross-over after-plot with Wings of the Goddess: Events related to Tavnazia - Defending in the past & Re-taking the city in the present. (See "New Zones" & Simulacrum Arena - Historic Battles.) (Also "New Endgame Event")

* Cross-over after-plot with Rize of the Zilart/Chains of Promathia: something about paradise & merging of worlds, perhaps the Simulacrum have seen other dimensions where something like this has been achieved (FFV). (new endgame area?) Although, I'm of the opinion that the "paradise" the Zilart saw was the future of Al'Taieu after the meltdown and the voice telling them to use the power of the mothercrystals was Promathia, tricking them into "freeing" him. Yve'noile essentially tells Eald'narche at the end of RotZ that their plan would never work as a means to gaining access to the paradise they thought they were after. However, it certainly did open the gate to Al'taieu (that previously only opened once every 100 years on its own schedule).
Perhaps, instead, the event is related to the awakening of the Celestial Avatars or entering the dreams of the Celestial Avatars.)

* Entering the astral plane through the rift left behind in Alexander's "corpse". May grant some insight into the Celestial Avatars & their goals, or their current state of existence.

[AyinDygra]

~*~ Add-on Scenario Includes These Features ~*~
(See links to other threads/posts for expanded information)
A Full Storyline of Quests
I won't go into full quest-line detail with boss battles, etc (unless asked to), because I'd like to be as surprised as anyone else by the plot twists & turns made possible in such a setting.

Important Quest and Story Boss Notes:

* I would expect this expansion story to be equivalent in length to Chains of Promathia (without so much running between locations for cutscenes.)

* The "Kill X for Y of Z items"-missions like in the first three add-on scenarios get very boring very fast. Instead, add more Assault style missions with their interesting goals, many being non-combat. Choice of jobs should not be as important, even for major fights (I'd go so far as to say the main story should be solo-able, with optional bosses and endgame events providing the real challenge of the game.) And please do not require participation in minigames as part of quest completion.

* I do not expect fancy movies, just a good story & fun battles. From what I understand, the movies are what delayed the release of each batch of missions for the expansions and this was made even more apparent with the Wings of the Goddess, due to the three nations quest lines between each mission section. While the movies have been better than ever recently, they're not the important part of the story. If movies are so important to the FFXI team, I suggest putting enough resources into the development team to release them in a timely manner so the expansion is completed within one year of release. You can put out entire games full of storylines with full movies telling the story in less time than some of these expansions which use the in-game graphics engine to produce the movies (FFXI's aren't even pre-rendered.)

(I cover the next two points again in more detail in the "new events" section)
* Include the concept of "modes" for the bosses (and normal enemies) & environmental features to battles.
~ Modes are separate AI routines with different combat options that can be changed by player actions. Expand on the stagger system so it doesn't just stun the boss... certain skillchains or magicbursts (NOT weaponskills or certain spells, because that limits far more jobs whereas this encourages teamwork) could totally change the boss, cutting off horns, severing its tail, clipping its wings, disarming its giant weapon that used to cause devastating AoE attacks, ... sorta like those Acroliths. Crazy unique stuff. (Even things like "while under <status effect> it does different things.)
~ Environmental features are things like: hitting switches on the floor to trigger an environmental attack on the boss, perhaps exploiting an automated defense system's line of fire to hurt the boss, stuff like that. And the bosses could impact the environment, similar to certain Assault missions where their attacks break down walls & doors, opening up access to different areas, so the goal of fighting a boss isn't just killing it. (in fact, there may be ways to trigger the boss going back into passive condition, when you really don't want to actually kill it, in fact it could be detrimental to kill it.)

* And... there should be NPCs that give us clues as to how to trigger the unique traits of these bosses. Past FF games generally had useful NPCs that actually had good quest information. FFXI has "go over there" and find "something"... with absolutely no information on most(any?) bosses. (For example, would it really have hurt to have a quasilumin in Al'Taieu have some sort of useful, clear hint about Absolute Virtue?)

* Please include more lore about the biggest bad monsters of FFXI that you add with this expansion/add-on series. Questions still remain about past mega-bosses, such as: Why are the sky gods on Tulia? Who are Kirin and the others in the FFXI lore? How do they fit in with the Celestial & Terrestrial avatars, if they have any relationship at all? Who is Pandemonium Warden? He seems to be related to Odin's underworld realm due to his name, but it's not clear. What is Absolute Virtue & why was it jailed?

[AyinDygra]

New Zones
We want to see the Far East, West (Ulbuka), North (Rhazowa), and South (Olzhirya). I would work them into the plot like this:

The CoP storyline says that much of the lands of the Far East had already been consumed by the emptiness during Tenzen's visit, but that the Emptiness was no longer threatening his land after Promathia's defeat. Perhaps the Emptiness has now consumed "much of" the continents surrounding the middle lands, but the defeat of Promathia has given them some breathing room to re-group and fight back.

As more and more of the light is restored to the mothercrystals, the surrounding continents are restored to their pre-emptiness-destroyed-state. (alternatively: light can be collected into new receptacles located in each of the other continents, like little Astral Candescences, that only work to stop the emptiness from advancing in their vicinity.)

This sort of endgame allows for each of the other continents to be "partially" released, with the understanding that most of the landmass has been consumed by the emptiness (the maps should not show the progress of the emptiness, allowing for any of the landscape to be blocked off or revealed at any time with additional zones added or storyline events) and the power being restored by the adventurers may take decades, if not centuries to fully repair the damage done by the Zilart. Each continent could be released as a separate add-on, with enough new zones and storyline to make it worthwhile. (New Zones: At least one city, 3 fields, and two dungeons for each continent, ideally Aht Urhgan size eventually, without the focus on three separate beastman forces for each continent, so a bit smaller.) And since I know nothing of the geography of the other continents, I won't directly suggest many areas.
Themes to consider when adding each region, based on what we know of them:
Far East: Yagudo empire, Hume country, Ninjas, Samurai, Monks, Phoenix, Emptiness, festivals, alchemists, blacksmiths, Genji gear, maybe another ancient technological society similar to Olduum existed in the far east as well, or it's just another part of Olduum, like the island city Avatar: "Eden" or "E'den", the first Zilart city. (see the New Races post for new machine type enemies).
Ulbuka: Beastmasters, Rangers, Geomancers, Dragoons, totems/totema summons, aztec/maya/native american themes, Veldt?, Monster Arena, Hunters, Echidna(mentioned earlier), the exorcists came from the west too, Moogle forest/civilization and the avatar Maduin.
Rhazowa: Hume, Galka, Elvaan, Vikings, Warriors, Orcs, Gigases, the sea may be more important up there (Gigas navy), the avatars: Bismarck, Siren and Eden, Mermen/Mermaids, Gnoles, Vargs, "Dwarves", Sasquatch, Cyclops, Minotaurs.
Olzhirya: Mithra, Arachne, Uggalipeh, Rangers, Geomancers, matriarchal tribal themes, maybe dinosaur-type enemies, Harpies, Mithra hunting in groups/packs may emphasize cooperative team gameplay (skillchains/magic bursts) against monsters on their continent.

So, leaving how many areas in each of the new continents to release in such an expansion up to SE, I'll list only the zones that are specifically required for the plot I put forth involving the Simulacrum:

* Triangle Island

The Triangle Island zone could simply be part of the Qufim or Behemoth's Dominion map, accessed through Behemoth's Dominion. Alternatively, accessed through a special Moblin Maze setup where completion of the challenge dumps you out in the tunnels beneath the island, instead of taking you back to Jeuno.

* Beneath Triangle Island

These are the nasty tunnels beneath Triangle Island, infested with undead and homunculii. The region would be similar to the solid cave areas of Movalpolos. (This area could be "part of" Triangle Island's map)

* The Simulacrum capital city in the Threshold

This zone could be another isolated part of the Walk of Echoes, rather than a new zone. Most of their civilization's capital could be on independent floating landmasses in the void that you can "see" but never visit. Additionally, I'd add some sailing vessels floating in the void, from all the ships swallowed up from the Shu'meyo Sea - Bermuda Triangle style.

* Tavnazia

This is the actual city of Tavnazia. Due to the size of the city, it will need at least one section up on each hill, and a primary city market type zone at the bottom. One hill could potentially be explained away as the residential zone for all the adventurers, but if it becomes as popular of a zone as I'm expecting, it would be best to have 3 zones. It should at the very least be a set of campaign style battlefields during the Fall of Tavnazia historic battle in the Simulacrum Arena. My greatest wish regarding Tavnazia is that in present day Vana'diel, Aldo leads an army of Adventurers to go battle to reclaim the city from the beastmen and wyrms that now infest it. It would make an excellent endgame area, tying in to the opening movie of the game. (The Tavnazian Safehold would become the war headquarters, accompanied by whatever conversation changes are needed with this major plot development, as they have changed during the CoP storyline as well.)

* Blueblade Fell

This is the forested area outside of Tavnazia. A river runs through the north.

[AyinDygra]

New Enemies:

Surface of "Triangle Island" enemies:
* Leafer (Rabbits)
* Darkwind (Black Birds)
* Intangir (Behemoth, defaults to sleeping like Jnun, invisible like Shikigami Weapon, does not aggro, Counter-attacks with Meteor when it is woken up, then ends battle and goes back to sleep/invis)
* Zone Eater (Non-aggressive Sandworm/Cavernous Maw - Its only attack draws you into the realm of the Simulacrum)

"Under Triangle Island" enemies:
* Shambling Corpse (corpselight family or new undead family with only a floating upper body of a skeleton, en-kappa on hits, counters magic with powerful magic of its own)
* Baalzephon (Imp family, berserks/enrages target, dies if MP reaches 0, absorbs all elements except fire/holy)
* Amduscias ("fomor", dancer, confuses, dies if MP reaches 0)
* Covert ("fomor", ninja, uses ninjutsu, shadows, short range bind aura)
* Kamui (4-armed swordsman, en-zombie on hits)
* Wartpuck (Jnun or Ruszor family, uses Yawn: sleep, and can counterattack with snort: strong knock back with hate reset/disengage)

There are several enemies from FFVI's Triangle Island that died when their MP reached 0. The closest I could figure is that they're a type of Fomor, or a new type of creature, perhaps Homunculus, sustained by magical power. They could have higher HP than other enemies of their level, which makes it strategically important to bring people who can drain or damage enemy MP to take them out faster.

Past "Tavnazia" enemies and NPCs:
* Everything we saw in the opening movie.
* Beastman armies similar to Campaign, but stronger forces. (The most elite Beastman forces were supposedly sent to attack Tavnazia and take down the secret San d'Orian weapon, ending the war)
* Powerful Tavnazian special forces (on our side). (Tarutaru Black Mages casting Meteor, Scholars, etc)

Present "Tavnazia" & "Blueblade Fell" enemies: (many do not need to be entirely "new")
* Fomors
* Wyrms
* Behemoths
* Beastmen Armies (Orcs, Gigas, Yagudo, Quadav)
* Siege Engines
* Mercenary forces left behind from the Crystal War. (Gnoles, Trolls, Tauri etc)

Enemies on Outer Continents Being Consumed by Emptiness:
(When not taken from FFXI sources, most have at least 1 previous FF game reference)
* Advanced Empty-family monsters. (some of the enemy types below could be empties)
* Harpies (Non-HNM versions)
* Giant Lizards (ridden by Orcs in the north)
* Orcish Lizard Riders (Riding on those giant lizards)
* Golems (FF1, FF4)
* Ankylo, Tyro, Pterodactyl, Brachio (FF1, FF6)
* Needle Monkey and/or Sword Rat (FF3, FF4)
* Cenchos, Ologhai (FF3) (Octopus-men, Crabmen with Tentacle legs - I don't know if they qualify as beastmen)
* Tangie, Kelpie (FF3) (Mer-horse, Seal with lion head)
* Mandrake, Eye Fang, Roper (FF3) (Various plant monsters)
* Balor (FF3) (Humanoid with no head, giant mouth in chest, tentacles) (empty candidate)
* Gaap (FF3) (Scaly Elephant-Mole Squidface?) (empty candidate)
* Death Claw/Iron Claw (Machine with arms replaced by six spider-leg arm-spears, have a chance to split when not killed in one blow, unless struck by Katanas/Great Katanas or paralyzed) (FF3, FF5)
* Giant Zuu (The giant dragon-raven of FF4, not tiny birds)
* Hundlegs, Centipede (FF1, FF4)
* Cold Beast and Fiery Hound (FF4) (komodo dragon-bulls made of ice and fire respectively)
* Mech Soldier, Guardian, Beamers (FF1, FF4) (Mech Soldiers are flying enemies with blade arms, Guardians were humanoid with heavy weaponry, Beamers were laser gun enplacements with AI control)
* Motor Trap, Level Tricker, Level Checker (Machines, Marionette type enemy hanging from a chain, Monitor/Scanner type enemy)(FF5)
* Various Magitek suits of armor (FF6)
* Lethal Weapon, Io, Scullion (FF6) (Spider-like mechs)
* Prometheus (FF6) (One prominent tank tread in the middle, powerful looking arms)
* Chaser/Telstar/Innoc (FF6) (Floating robots that look like the Star Wars scout/spy droid on Hoth)
* Trapper/Drop/Junk (FF6) (Mechanical enemies hanging from chains, used machine guns)
* Anguiform (FF6) (Eel with large wing-like front fins)
* Rhinotaur (FF6) (not a demon taurus)
* Any enemies that are sources for the various items that mention their origin on the other continents.

New Beastmen

* Mermen/Mermaids: Fish Beastmen (not Merrows, but they may have spawned the stories that inspired the form given to merrows, or the Merrows were created from Mermaid corpses. most Merpeople are friendly) (FF1)
* Sasquatch: Monkey-bear Beastmen (some are friendly) (FF2, FF6)
* Vargs: Wolf Beastmen (not Gnoles but maybe related, most are friendly) (FF5 - town of Kelb, FF6 - Lone Wolf)
* Dwarves: Mole Beastmen (Dwarves of the north - Vikings, Smiths, Miners) (FF1, FF4, FF9)
* Minotaurs: Bull Beastmen (FF3)
* Arachne: Spider Beastmen (Lower body spider, upper body person) (FF4, underworld)
* Cyclops (Branch of Gigas?) (storywise, could be mages or seers of the Gigas in the northlands)

New Status Effects (due to new enemies and jobs and events)

* Kappa (Turns the targets into green, goblin-like creatures with extremely low attack power) (I'd have used "Imp", but we have imp enemies, and that's not what this turns targets into)
* Confused (A confused player or monster will attack its enemy or allies, including itself. Physical attacks have a chance to cancel the effect.)
* Mini (Makes you tiny, reducing your physical attack power and defense against normal enemies. May allow entrance to "tiny" areas with tiny monsters. May be part of new events.)

See individual posts for these related status effects:
Chocobo Derby Effects
Effects corresponding to the New Jobs' Abilities and Spells
Simulacrum Arena Limiting/Unlimiting Laws

[AyinDygra]

New Endgame Events & Activities (and their rewards)
* "Light Warriors" / "Warriors of the Crystal"
This event is all about restoring the light of the mothercrystals to stop the advance of the Emptiness on each of the outer continents. Each player taking part in this quest collects "motes" of light within their fragment of the Mothercrystal (the Prismatic Fragment key item given to us by the Dawnmaiden in Mission #7 of the Rise of the Zilart story, however, completion of RotZ, CoP, ToAU, and WotG are all required to be at the proper point in story-time to participate in the events set to unfold.)

It seems the light of the mothercrystals (and maybe the Astral Candescence too) has kept the middle lands safe so far, but with the events of Chains of Promathia, that light has grown dimmer. In order to restore much of the light that was lost when the Zilart tried to open the gates of paradise, players have to:

* Travel through Atomos to collect the light from some alternate source and bring it back. (if not done carefully with logical reasoning in the story to explain how we're not hurting the people relying on the alternate source, we may become villains where we're "stealing" the light... not a good course for heroes -- taking the mothercrystal light from Abyssea would be bad, for instance -- so I present other activities)
* Perhaps the whole "spectral alignment" thing we deal with in Voidwatch is linked to mothercrystal light.
* Fight new empty monsters on the outer continents (not in Promyvion) to collect Motes. Empty NMs and HNMs would produce more Motes. Also, fight (not always kill) monsters and HNMs displaced from their normal habitats by the encroaching darkness, to protect the people in their path (these would not directly reward Motes, but may be required to complete tasks that do.)
* Perform tasks unique to each area that produce motes. (similar to releasing pixies or cleaning up an abyssea environment.)
* Animas and elemental crystals may also be changed into mothercrystal light, but I'd link that function mainly to the Strange Apparatuses that the Zilart may have used to split the light of the mothercrystals into the elemental crystals in the first place. And while this option may be possible, it should take a LOT of anima/crystals to equal a single mote, to encourage participation in the new content. For example: 1 Crystal Cluster = 1 Mote. Mote-bought items should cost many thousands of Motes each. Killing normal empty monsters may produce around 100 motes at a time and the special activities could give thousands, for instance. So it would be more time efficient to use the new events to collect the Motes, while still leaving the door open for other methods.)

Restoring this light will open up new zones on the other continents as a function of server activity, not individual accomplishment. (areas will not be re-claimed by the emptiness once players unlock the areas, so it's a one-time event everyone works toward at the release of the expansion - making this a server competition may prompt more people to pick up the expansion as soon as possible.) More "advanced" empty-family enemies could be seen in zones that are currently being "emptied." This event will answer: "What happens to an area that has been consumed by the Emptiness?" assuming it is different from the Promyvions as they were what I assume to be shadows of the areas surrounding the crags, not consumed sections of other continents. People consumed by the emptiness seem to fall into a slumber. (Tenzen's people used them as sacrifices in creating the Phoenix blade - how did they reach the people without also being consumed by the emptiness? Or does the emptiness actually not do anything to the physical world at all and just attack the minds of living things? So many questions.)

The final area of an event like this may take place in a region of emptiness that has been crystallized by the Eye of Altana, perhaps inside the shard that was in Prishe... or is still in the Abyssea-Prishe - a black crystal endgame zone... it could even be in the Chamber of Eventide. This endgame zone could be similar to "Support Job Restricted" Dynamis where people have amnesia due to the emptiness, and they have to collect memories to restore their job abilities and spells. However, rather than simply regaining their original strengths, they can collect NEW memories dropped from the empty monsters, perhaps memories of heroes from past FF games, with new abilities and spells that can only be used in this area. Some memories may allow jobs to use abilities and spells of other jobs that they are not currently using. Now, some of the crazy suggestions on these boards could be added as abilities in this zone, where they need such power to face the foes presented. (This is a different type of increase in power than directly increasing stats and effects through atmas and abyssites.)

Performing Skillchains and Magic Bursts may unleash more light to collect from the enemy being attacked; the more damage done, the more light released (so people are not rewarded for spending an eternity creating weak skillchains and using non-damaging spells to magicburst for "more" light). All players participating in the battle will gain these motes that can be used like a currency. Motes can be fed into the Strange Apparatus locations around Vana'diel to change them from elemental energy back into mothercrystal light, reversing the process used by the Zilart to use the light of the crystals to build their civilization. These motes can also be fused together to form "Crystal Armor" -- the main item-reward for this event.

My thoughts on basic monsters and boss enemies are centered on the concept of wanting to include both fast paced killing and tank-strategy-friendly bosses, catering to nearly every play style at once, and not leaving out any jobs. They will all have a place in every aspect of this endgame. (How normal enemies die should not be important.)

Additionally, I would prefer if this was not a "timed event", but more of a "go any time, for as long as you like", as if going into any normal area. To prevent crowding of certain notorious monsters, the rewards should not come from singular locations or monsters (not even with 3 pop locations). There should be alternative avenues to obtain things in entirely different areas. In-game point systems work best in this regard, with the "motes" we are collecting, and then spending.

[AyinDygra]

Overall thoughts on the role of basic monsters in this event:

Basic enemies should be easy to kill and there should be swarms (easy prey, or too weak to be worthwhile enemies). No True Sight/Sound/Aggro enemies should be in this expansion. Each member of the entire party should be ready to take on enemies of their own. In past games, a few random encounters were not really going to kill you, each minor enemy getting in one or two hits on your party, maybe inflicting a status ailment (poison and stone being the most annoying, since they persisted after combat ended), but in dungeons and long overworld treks, the relentless encounters became a war of attrition: after many battles, you were forced into using inns in towns, or tents and cabins at save points. The event may revolve around rushing from one point to the next, with "safe areas" every so often as "checkpoints" where you can rest and organize.

Enemies should drop healing items (temporary items), or drop caskets that don't require too much trouble to open. (no math quizzes, for these caskets, anyway - stopping to deal with chests would slow things down too much) Basic enemies should swarm, but never be a real threat. Using skillchains and magic bursts against these minor enemies may cause backlash healing of HP and MP for the entire party (if the enemy can live through two weaponskills, maybe some monsters will be designed for just that purpose). Empty monsters should drop fragments of memories of different jobs, and even new abilities for each job. This would clearly be a reason to mass-slaughter random enemies on the way to bosses, to collect certain abilities that may be very helpful.

It's a fast paced event, not a slow and methodical "pull to camp" type of event. People should desire to kill everything they encounter, rather than sneak through, so killing "normal" monsters should be as integral to the event as going after bosses, for complimentary reasons. These swarms may fill the role of "AoE attacks" for bosses too (see the boss section next.) One brainstormed idea is: Defeating the minor enemies may grant buffs to the party that have short durations, however, continual killing of the enemies will keep those effects active, while adding new ones. They may even extend the duration of buffs that you gain from using your own spells and job abilities. (Imagine that, use your 2-hour abilities, then continue killing enemies to keep it active? Fun times, and not as far fetched as it sounds, since we've had restore chests in Abyssea essentially doing this for months. This thought lends itself to an endgame event that takes place in a realm related to frozen time... similar to the Village of Mirage in the Inter-dimensional Rift of FFV. The setting within Atomos, who is consuming time, is a fitting stage for such an event with these factors, as well as the crystallized emptiness within Prishe. Thematically, Prishe was frozen in time and stopped aging when the emptiness was crystallized, too. And as mentioned earlier, the Chamber of Eventide was filled with the Emptiness, so it has a good probability of being such a zone. May as well use all of the above!)

[AyinDygra]

Thoughts on Boss Enemies:

Boss enemies shouldn't rely so much on Area of Effect attacks to be dangerous, or these AoE's should do much less damage to pets and players who are not the target of the boss's enmity (Tactics revolving around a Tank holding the enemy while damage dealers gain TP on "other" monsters, so as not to feed the boss TP should not be desirable (in fact, you may WANT the boss to use its TP moves), and all jobs should be encouraged to be up front to make best use of all of their tools to contribute, especially White and Red Mages.)

Some TP attacks should be devastating to the tank, but counter-able with player tactics (which means giving players enough notice to do something about it, that doesn't involve the "Stun" spell), such as using a specific skillchain or magic burst (but not specific weaponskills or spells), perhaps even totally disabling certain attacks for a period of time (this goes far beyond the Abyssea/Dynamis staggering system.)

Ninja shadows should not be required to survive boss auto-attacks, but it should be one way; having as much defense as a Paladin should be overkill and allow them to survive attacks that other jobs would need said shadows for - and these should be "Good Things" that make both Ninja and Paladin ideal for tanking, giving you a massive safety net, but not lock out small groups that don't have those jobs. To deal with "regular auto-attack rounds" of bosses, most melee jobs should have sufficient armor on normal gear that they usually wear so they can survive long enough to be cured without split-second reflexes and the tank can re-establish hate, while mages would normally be in far more danger unless they put up precautionary measures through spells. In fact, it would be good strategy to allow DDs to take hate for a while to take some hits and get rid of enmity. However, tank jobs should have many low-timer abilities to quickly grab back hate when they need to.

The methods of killing the bosses should be important, not just depleting their HP with attacks. By alternating Fire and Ice magic, you may be able to reduce the defense of Iron Golems, eventually shattering them. Breaking off a boss's armor could simply reduce their defense, or weaken their massive defense against a certain damage type, suddenly making them weak to that type. Disarming them of weapons or severing body parts could drastically change the battle, enabling different strategies to be used to defeat the boss if a certain group does not have the jobs to perform other strategies. (Some bosses may even have extremely unorthodox battle systems, like a boss that only takes damage from weaponskills, skillchains and magic bursts, where auto-attack and normal spells do 0 damage... however, it has "TP spikes" that return TP for each auto-attack as if you did hit/damage it.)

In addition, bosses may be "used" to accomplish goals, allowing their attacks to interact with the environment, perhaps opening paths that would not otherwise exist (break re-growing walls, clear miasma, etc), so killing the boss is not the entire goal of each encounter. (I can provide more examples if necessary, and I think it will be... Past FF games occasionally made use of these features, more as story elements than combat. In FFXI, where battles are fought in the environment, not in a self-contained window with a pretty background, there is more opportunity to make this a more dynamic system.)

Elemental affinities should play a much larger role, especially since this endgame event focuses on the light of the crystals, and the Zilart separated that light into the elements we see today (according to lore of how they built their civilization, tied to those strange apparatus devices that respond elementally) Regardless of the true history, elements should really play a larger role in the battles ahead. Both spells and skillchains are impacted by this emphasis, so both mages and melee can take advantage of it. I have always been annoyed that the game design of FFXI assigns more power to certain spells just because they're learned a few levels later than other spells of the same tier, and yet they won't differentiate the summoned monsters in any way, supposedly wanting Summoners to be more aware of the elements than Black Mages who deal with elemental magic attacks directly. Grievances aside, these new monsters could greatly emphasize elemental choice both by damage done, and effects on the monsters' AI, varying from counterattacks due to wrong elemental attacks, new attacks, new strategies, new self buffs, different Enmity calculations (they really hate certain elements?... etc) So much could be done in this regard that I considered making an entire section devoted to it.

With all of these new tactics involved, there will have to be some ways to know about them without trial and error, stumbling on a random occurrence, and linking that to monster behavior like a raving conspiracy theorist, (like Absolute Virtue... supposedly there is some special battle mechanic in place that nobody has figured out yet...) I propose that there be NPCs with knowledge about these NMs that are willing to point out some of these special cases. Perhaps they're the NPCs that send you out to kill them, or hunters you meet in the field near the NMs who were unable to defeat the beasts. This point is essential to the success of a system that works so far beyond the normal encounters players are accustomed to.

[AyinDygra]

Rewards for the "Warriors of the Crystal" activity:
Crystal Armor
This concept (along with Crystal Shards) was one of the last I began adding, so it's one of my least "refined and finished" concepts at this point. They have some overlapping features as I was brainstorming how to make both useful and different, despite sharing many similarities.

These "Crystal Armor" items are created at Strange Apparatus locations; unique pieces for each job. It's not necessarily made of crystal, but is certainly decorated with crystals. Each job should always want to be wearing this gear, so it should be customizable. This would allow each player to create armor that enhances the aspects of the job that they enjoy most. We have limited inventories, so we can't make a wide array of items for each job for each situation or against individual monster families during certain moon phases, or whatever other limitations are in place with Evoliths. Another consideration brought up in the past is the coding-imposed maximum number of stats possible on a single piece of gear. I have a possible solution to all of those concerns.

Crystal Armor Customization
Crystal Armor has its own base stats like any other gear, including Defense, Str/Dex/Vit/etc, Evasion, and +Skills. New to this type of armor is a stat called: "<equipment slot> Crystals" (with a numerical stat value) +3 to +10 or whatever works out balance-wise for each piece. These are then used to establish how many crystals can be placed in the armor. Since the armor itself is not modified by placing crystals, the base Crystal Armor can be stored.

(You may notice that "Crystal Shards," from the associated merit system revamp proposal, occasionally have effects that overlap with the Crystal Armor system. I'd like the ability to move old job-specific gear effects into a non-inventory location to still gain the benefit without hauling so much gear around or gear swapping for nearly every action one way or the other, but not both. In this case, I think the gear effects fit better in the Crystal Armor system, so shards would be the alternative. One last point: The shard effects would not stack with the actual gear.)

Placing Crystals
Using the new "Crystals" stat on the gear, crystal slots are created in a menu, similar to the process of setting Blue Magic spells or equipping Puppetmaster attachments.

Crystals for placement in "Body Crystals" slots will initially be created by bringing existing body armor to an NPC to infuse a crystal with one of its special traits such as "Augments" or "Enhances" or "+skill". These will be "job specific" crystals, with "<job> slot" requirements to keep their effects only on specific armor that can be worn by the proper jobs and to allow duplicate effects to be acquired and equipped on different armor slots (this system only allows one of each individual crystal, and some sets of Job Specific Equipment have the same bonuses on two different pieces of gear, like Dancer's "Increases Jig duration" on both legs and feet.). New crystals with more general stats will also be added. The lists should be color sorted, so you can easily see which ones can be put in each slot and which cannot. We should be able to sort the crystal list by job, which would display only crystals that match your job, to speed things up. (General use Crystals should always appear. They would normally be at the bottom of the list, or customized at the top of the list. All un-settable crystals for your current job could be "hidden", to make the list clearer as well.)

The selection of crystals that you choose to equip into each slot should be saved as a crystal list for easy re-equipping after changing to or from a job that uses different crystals.

Example of Crystal Armor:Crystal Breastplate (forgive the actual stats provided. Key Word: Example)
Level:99 Defense:100 (Body Slot)
HP+90 MP+90 Shield Skill +25
Damage Taken -5% Enmity +15
Body Crystals +5

Example Crystals:
Artifact/Relic/Empyrean-based Job Gear Crystals include:
Paladin Body: Enhances Cover effect
Paladin Body: Enhances Holy Circle effect
Paladin Body: Mitigates damage taken based on enmity
Paladin Feet: Enhances Divine Emblem effect
Paladin Hands: Enhances "Shield Defense Bonus" effect
Paladin Legs: Reduces enmity decrease when taking physical damage
Paladin Head: Converts 5% of damage taken to MP
Paladin Head: Enhances Fast Cast effect

Common <All Jobs> Crystals
Haste +5%
Evasion +15
Strength +15
Refresh +3
Regen +10
Regain +1
Store-TP +10
<one for each skill> +15 (or more)

Rare <All Jobs> Crystals (these would all be level 99 crystals, if this system is adapted for earlier use elsewhere)
Strength +15, Dexterity +15
Haste +5%, Evasion +15
Store-TP +25, Regain +1
Haste Sphere

Given this small list, the Paladin here could potentially place all three "Paladin Body" special traits on his single piece of Crystal Body armor with room for two of the general use crystals as an added bonus, or they could ignore the Augment/Enhance crystals and go for all rare crystals to boost other aspects of their job, continuing to swap in the Artifact/Relic/Empyrean armors for individual actions. Each piece of gear would work like this, giving plenty of room for customization.

Now, if someone were to swap this gear during battle with gear that doesn't have the "Crystals" stat on it, those crystals (and only those crystals set into those gear slots) would be disabled while the gear is not equipped, however, as soon as the proper gear is back in place, the crystals are in effect again. The only delay is a 1 minute cooldown after switching which crystals are equipped, similar to Blue Mage's set spells.

Crystals should be craftable through synthesis and synergy to ignite the economy (each crystal type could have different additional materials required to craft, putting them in different craft skills). Some could be dropped by NMs. Some could be quest rewards. However, once they are "used" and added to your "Crystals List", they disappear from your inventory list and you cannot use them as materials to create new crystals. This system keeps all crystals in a non-inventory system similar to Automaton Attachments, so they won't be clogging up inventory space. It allows people to collect them all, and use them in situations that require them, rather than making set pieces ahead of time, unable to adjust as the occasion demands.

You may notice that I've been using the generic term: "Crystals" the whole time. This is because the system could be a totally new system as explained, with a new name for what type of crystals these are, or it could be a revamp of Evoliths, giving each crystal a level requirement for use, much better stats, and removing the "slot type" and "vs family" restrictions found on current Evoliths.

Crystal Shards System (merit revamp)

The associated "Crystal Shards System" is similar to Merits, but more flexible and expandable (perhaps replacing merits as part of the revamp they have planned - so we'd automatically have the shards related to existing merits - while others could be added in a variety of ways). It will make use of "Crystal Shards" which allow players to set new traits and adjustments to abilities. The system is similar to limit points and merits, except you can purchase these "merits" and then set them like Blue Magic as needed (The Blue Magic system, and Automaton Attachments systems work extremely well for customizable features since they do not clog up inventories and already have many functions that adjust stats and grant job traits, spells and abilities.) - this allows someone to get both "+enmity" and "-enmity" shards at maximum strength, and have the option to switch between them when needed, or merit all weapon skill categories, but still be limited in how many can be set at any time.
(See Crystal Shards post for MUCH more detail - this needed its own, it's really that significant.)